The Crapification of Everything is Just Beginning
August 27th, 2009Becky did lots of research into finding a handheld blender that wasn’t crap. She eventually found an article in a consumer magazine that said that there are no handheld blenders that aren’t crap and to just buy the cheapest one available, expect it to crap out, and when it does, buy another one or use the warranty.
As absurd as that situation is, that’s the situation.
She bought a NZ$14 (about US$9.50) handheld blender at the Warehouse (the Warehouse is a New Zealand version of WalMart). Warehouse mostly sells garbage from China, and if you want a cheap appliance that you can count on to break down, or not work properly in the first place, Warehouse is the place to go in New Zealand.
She used that handheld blender for nearly a year and then it crapped out, as expected. She went back to Warehouse with the receipt and got another handheld blender (the same as the last one) for free. As crappy as that stuff is, Warehouse backs it for a year.
I wonder how many products have become commodified to the point where a quality version no longer exists at any price?
Changing the subject a bit, here’s an old disposable camera crapification story:
Disposable cameras, as we know them today, were relatively new when I attended Brooks Institute of Photography in the early 1990s.
One of the students there started producing really weird and unique images via some method that the rest of us couldn’t identify.
How was he doing it?
He had modified a disposable camera so that he could shoot with it, remove the film and then reload it. The quality of the lens was so poor that the various aberrations and distortions were producing the “unique” look of his work. I think that he normally shot 35mm with a Lieca M6, so the tack sharpness and beautiful contrast produced by that gear obviously started to bore him a bit.
Via: Wired:
The world has sped up, become more connected and a whole lot busier. As a result, what consumers want from the products and services they buy is fundamentally changing. We now favor flexibility over high fidelity, convenience over features, quick and dirty over slow and polished. Having it here and now is more important than having it perfect. These changes run so deep and wide, they’re actually altering what we mean when we describe a product as “high-quality.”
And it’s happening everywhere. As more sectors connect to the digital world, from medicine to the military, they too are seeing the rise of Good Enough tools like the Flip. Suddenly what seemed perfect is anything but, and products that appear mediocre at first glance are often the perfect fit.
The good news is that this trend is ideally suited to the times. As the worst recession in 75 years rolls on, it’s the light and nimble products that are having all the impact—exactly the type of thing that lean startups and small-scale enterprises are best at. And from impact can come big sales. “When the economy went south before Christmas last year, we worried that sales would be affected,” says Pure Digital’s Fleming-Wood. “But we sold a ton of cameras. In fact, we exceeded the goals we had set before the economy soured.” And this year? Sales, he says, are up 200 percent. (Another payoff: In May, networking giant Cisco acquired Pure Digital for $590 million.)
To some, it looks like the crapification of everything. But it’s really an improvement. And businesses need to get used to it, because the Good Enough revolution has only just begun.
Good post. I think it is designed in this way to keep us buying the same thing over and over.
I have lost count on all the items I have had to replace in the last couple years. Phones, laptops, speakers etc etc.
The thing that really annoys me is that you HAVE to buy something Chinese (ie: crap quality) otherwise you go without. If you LUCKY you can find something made in Europe/US/etc but then you PAY.
Its the never ending consumer treadmill…aargh I hate it!
I posted something about this years ago in a journal. I don’t remember if it was my Slashot or MySpace journal. I was complaining about how cheap things were being made.
It doesn’t just apply to handheld or kitchen appliances.
My clothes washer stopped working, because the switch that detects the lid is closed failed. For something that gets slammed on once per load, it was a cheap piece of plastic. I simply bypassed it, and it kept working.
My wife had purchased a “good” steam cleaner for the carpet. In a couple years, the water tank developed spiderweb cracks. I patched them with epoxy, and more would appear. The plastic was so thin it was a losing battle.
Those (and yours) are just examples. Everything is designed to fail sooner rather than later. I’m good at fixing things, but still many things fail so frequently it becomes less than cost effective to continue repairing them. I suggest people don’t buy quite a few different kinds of cars, because of the crap parts they use. What good is it to make a large investment, just to replace it again in 5 to 10 years? If you don’t buy a replacement, you’re stuck with something broken.
Nothing is made “to last” any more. Besides being cheaper to manufacture substandard equipment, it also ensures a continued income stream.
Some people thing the “made to last” was a yesteryear thing. Really, I’ve had plenty of things to prove it. I still have some stuff in my house from the 1950’s, that still work perfectly. I bought a few replacements because I wanted something “newer”, only to have the newer stuff fail. Growing up on a farm, we had a 1960’s tractor. It lasted through my childhood, and was finally sold when we sold the farm. Sheet metal may have rusted, but the tractor still worked great. A friend of mine bought one almost just like it (same year and model, different configuration). It works, and will keep working until he’s an old man.
At 9 years old, my car is showing its age. I’ve kept up with it carefully, so it could be considered “excellent” condition. Even so, with 100k miles on it, I know I’ll be putting a new engine in, in just a few years. Even still, I’ve replaced parts that wouldn’t have “worn out” on older cars. That’s far surpassed most of the “economy” cars that friends have had. They’ve come and gone. They’re built to live through the 5 years of the loan, and not a lot more.
As long as consumers will tolerate less than perfection, the manufacturers will churn out less than perfection, and the consumers will replace what could have been life-long products every few years.
My thought on purchasing kitchen appliances: You can either buy cheap and replace it on an annual cycle, or buy the really high end (commercial kitchen stuff, not the ‘prosumer’ models ala Williams-Sonoma or other fancy cooking stores, which is mostly built with the same 1-2 year lifespan, just shinier and 10x the cost), or take the time to search out old stuff, made before the disposable-appliances era. For instance I have two waffle irons, both of which are easily 40 or 50 years old and running just great, and a hand mixer that has been making whipped cream and beating eggs for almost 75 years.
Where I’m currently working we jokingly offer our customers a “Doorway Warranty”. This is a warranty that runs out as soon as the customer takes their purchase through the shop doorway.
Really, people should be offended by this, even though it’s a joke, but no one ever is. They just give the usual fatalistic laugh we all use for such situations.
I believe it all boils down to advertising. In the last quarter of the 20th century, Americans were taught that they should never buy anything unless it was a bargain, that they should never buy anything unless it was on sale (except for, paradoxically, their stock investments, which should only be bought when they reach the highest prices they’ve ever been at…but I digress…).
If you pay attention, people brag almost every day about buying some piece of crap that was a “great deal”. Advertising psychology 101 teaches us that we “save money” by buying things on sale.
The mental world-view of modern people is almost completely upside-down.
They have forced us into a “survival” mindset. If I buy an appliance with a 90 day warranty and it hasn’t broken by day 89, I give the “manufacturer’s programmed destruct” a personal assist and make sure it fails forthwith. Then, immediately back to China-Mart demanding a refund or another of the same to use for another 89 days. Of course, most consumers do not have the discipline to do this so the “man” basically wins in the end.
I felt I need to add to my previous comment. I was pleased that my car, with 100k miles on it, was doing very well. Yesterday, I was driving to the store, and the throttle cable gave out.
A piece that on older vehicles would have been steel is made of plastic. I stepped on the gas, and nothing happened. It was 6pm, all the dealership parts departments were closed. I went to a couple 3rd party parts stores who said “Oh, that’s a dealer part.” I improvised a solution so I’m able to drive, but is improvising a fix a real solution when it should have been made right the first time? If I had been most people, A tow truck would have taken my car to the dealer so it could be fixed sometime next week. That’s all fine and dandy if I’m close to a dealership, but what if I was 100 miles from the nearest dealership?
I bought my car to have a car, not to have a car that will have little parts break, so I may continue to fund their company for years to come.
Yes, I am less than happy about the crapification of products that we purchase, and even though this was a top of the line $40,000 product it’s not immune to planned obsolescence. I selected it carefully because I know cars, and this one is better than most. There is no “better” choice that is immune.
JWSmythe, I can relate to that. Although modern vehicles do have some advantages over older models (added to use of modern inventions such as synthetic oils, etc.), there is still the issue of the weakest link causing the chain to break, as was the case in your car. I am running 10 year and older Volvos and Saabs and have taken the time to educate myself about parts sources, problems with particular models, etc. The typical consumer does not or is not able to do this and is at the mercy of “the system.” Still, with a little research and networking, one can stay a little ahead of the rest of the “pack of prey.”
Larry Glick, I use a system similar to yours. When my product, from Wal-Mart, breaks I buy a new one and return the broken one with the receipt for the new one.